I could keep a camera around my neck and just take pictures all day of the things that Kyle does or gets into…but I don’t. Occasionally, I will get some pictures of the things he has done. For example…

Kyle got a Sharpie off of the dresser in the closet the other night. Kurt noticed this and said “Kyle! No! Get back here!” In that time, Kyle had the lid off waving the marker around wildly…

(and yes that is a piece of money is his mouth in the above picture. he grabbed it quick and put it in his mouth.)

Marking on the back of his head and behind his ears….

On our comforter…

After wrestling this black sharpie away, Kyle went and found and orange and blue marker (as evident in the pictures and on the baby gate)

 But what are we to do? The girls love to color. He will walk right up to them and rip the marker out of their tightly grasped hand.

Or the shoe organizer that I thought was such a great idea for our family. We don’t really wear our shoes in the house and since all of our bedrooms are upstairs, shoes would pile up by the front door. So I bought a shoe organizer. Kyle will climb on top to reach the pub mirror where our keys, hats, and sunglasses hang or just pull shoes out for fun!

He hadn’t made too much of a mess at this point..

Or disrupting his sisters while they play nicely together. They were working on a play with their dolls for us (even resorting to hiding in our bathroom under the sink so Kyle would leave them alone) WRONG

Or just being so dang cute….

What did you have hiding under your hat Kyle?

This post is just a collection of random things from the week…..

Samantha, Kurt, and I painted sun catchers one morning. She did a really nice job on her dinosaur.

A couple of weeks ago, Sam made this cake from a recipe I found on Bakerella. It was super simple for her and she was so proud she made it all by herself.

 Here are the kids before church on Sunday in some really cute dresses that MoMo made for them. The girls received lots of compliments on their cute clothes!

(and can you tell Kyle was tired of pictures and just trying to get out the door?)

We have had BEAUTIFUL weather the last several days and have tried to be outside as much as possible. I think it makes us all happier!

It did rain on Monday, which forced us to stay inside. We made fruit loop necklaces, played school, and then had craft time. Samantha made a butterfly out of “paper plates” and stickers.

(Kyle trying to take her craft she had worked soooo very hard on)

Soccer season that is…Sydney will have games once sometimes twice a week with a practice in there are well. On this coming Saturday, Samantha starts her Small Fry soccer, which Sydney started in as well.  I am coaching Samantha while Kurt continues with the Stars. This should be interesting.

Soccer season for Sydney started this Saturday with her first game. The team has been practicing a few weeks. They started kind of slow, but by the second half, they were on fire! She is still in a league where they don’t keep score, so honestly, I am unsure of the final. I was too busy watching Kyle to keep up with the scores.

Thank goodness MoMo was there and she helped distract Kyle for a little while so I could watch some of the game!

Kyle was giving high fives to the girls on the bench. He is such a flirt!

Samantha has hair that is so hard to control.

If you have ever seen her in the morning, you know what I am talking about.

I try to fix it for church, but it still manages to look like I didn’t.

I have tried ponytails, barrettes, headbands…nothing seems to keep her thin hair under control.

Some days, I just give up.

Then the other day it came to me…I will put a bandanna on her head. The hair will stay out of her eyes and it won’t be sticking up all of the place. We will see. I don’t think that we will be wearing one to church any time soon, but maybe when she starts soccer on Saturday it will at least keep the hair out of her face!

I stopped taking monthly pictures once Kyle hit a year, but I thought I would do a 15 month post.

He is just one of a kind. As tired as we are at the end of the night with him, as many times as we have said “No Kyle!”, and as many messes as I clean up, he is SO MUCH FUN!!! (For example, right now Kurt is trying coerce Kyle out of the office to put him to bed. Instead he is running and hiding and laughing and telling Kurt no.)

He weighs a little more than 26 pounds and is about 33 inches tall. He says several words regularly and is starting to repeat words we say. He loves to hammer and bang things. He loves to make noise of any kind. He loves music and dancing. He loves puckering up his lips to give me kisses or wrapping his arms around our necks for hugs. He waits at the front door if he knows I am coming home or tries to pull open the gate when Daddy is getting home on the other side. He still spends a lot of his time hanging out on the kitchen table. He throws a ball pretty hard, loves peek-a-boo, and sticking his finger in our eyes, nose, and mouth.

The other morning I was trying to get ready. Instead of playing with the room full of toys (or the game room full of toys), he plays in my bathroom. Here are some examples of the havoc he can wreak in about 15 minutes!

 (notice there is no toilet paper on the roll. I wonder who did that?) 

We had to recently get new toothbrushes. Kyle likes to climb up on the sink, get ours, and take them to some special hiding place we had not discovered yet!

A couple of weeks ago Sydney had her first school performance. She had a speaking part as a farmer.  There were a lot of kids and A LOT more parents (and family members). It was pretty crazy. But she looked cute and did a great job.

Her fans:

Momo, Aunt Brie, Jenny, Mommy, and Daddy were also there, but I didn’t take pictures of adults, just kids.

Here are a couple of Kyle putting shoes on and later while getting ready, trying to knock Samantha off of his rocket. This kid is something else!

 This boy…..

This boy is something else. I was thinking at Chick Fil A last night how much different coming with Kyle is than coming with the girls.  The girls, I could sit back and watch them play. With Kyle I am having to stay after him all the time. When we were leaving the play yard, he fell and braced himself with his wrist. I knew immediately there was something wrong. He held it different and cried in pain. I took him to Care United. They did an X Ray and put a temporary cast on it. The Xray didn’t look like there were any broken bones, but I am still waiting to hear from the radiologist for sure.  If nothing else he hyper-extended it. And of course, Kurt is out of town when this happens. He is missing all of action around our house!

**Update. Kyle’s arm is fine now. He started using it Thursday like nothing had ever happend. The radiologist FINALLY called Thursday afternoon and said they did not see a break on the X-Ray. I guess he just sprained. Thanks for calls and concern for Kyle. He hasn’t slowed down at all!

My cousin Sherry sent the kids a box of clothes a few weeks ago. The girls received these cute Valentine’s Day dresses with tights and hair accessories. Kyle received a baseball shirt, but I found him a BamBam shirt for vday that I thought would look cute.  He didn’t want to pose with the girls. He had other things on the agenda.  Thank you Sherry!

And for whatever reason, I just love this next photo. We were watching some of the opening ceremonies the other night of the Olympics and the kids were having their bedtime snacks and sitting on the coffee table. I told Kurt as I looked at them “I wish I had a picture of this”. So he got up and got me the camera. I thought I would share.

Here is how Kyle goes down the stairs when he wants to go FAST…

I woke up yesterday morning and didn’t even look outside until Jenny got here with the girls. I then realized it had started to snow. Sydney said “Mom, God sent you snow for your birthday!” Very sweet. Then Jenny pointed out that MaMa probably sent it to me for my birthday. I like to think of it that way. This would be my first birthday without her, so I like to think that she had God send it to me since that is one thing that I miss from home.  But I received many cards, flowers from Kurt, and John and Sally, and lots of other thoughtful gifts.

We waited for Sydney to get home from school before we played outside in it. I didn’t want to have fun in the snow without her. The kids had a blast. Our neighbors started a snowball fight from behind their fence. Sydney had a great time throwing snowballs at them. Kurt got to build his first snowman with the help of the girls.

Sydney got upset with the top part fell over.

Kyle couldn’t really figure out walking in the snow since it was so deep, so I carried him most of the time we were out there. He couldn’t wait to get out of his wet clothes.

We spent most of the night looking out our window as snow continued to fall. It really was beautiful. There is obviously no school today. Sydney woke me up early though so I could look out her window. It continued to snow more last night.

Here is our view this morning.  I am sure we will be building more snowmen today!